This is part of the chess-piece-based series done in the early 2000s. The surface is a faux finish obtained at Ace Hardware. The original was a fountain, including a birdbathy bowl with the same surface treatment, and a small pump, also obtained at Ace. The bowl started to get mineral-deposit funky, and the fountain effect (out of the top of the head) didn’t really add to the piece, so the bowl and the pump were ditched. Amazing, the similarity in facial features to Denise’s, though this was done years and years before we met.

A few years after the chess series came the tower series. This skyscraperish tower seemed incomplete. I was doing birds at the same time, so I made one to append, with a fond tip of the hat to the classic 30s film KING KONG. The title is “Kingfisher Kong” though the avianesque wallhanger bears little resemblance to any of the Kingfisher clan. If I ever do a remake, the species resemblance will be more true to life.

Here’s a close-up of “Pterence Dactyl,” making his second appearance in these blog posts.

Here’s some miscellany standing guard in the garage. A couple of things using the plaster cast of my life mask; some functional pottery; a Status of Liberty and an Eiffel Tower from Jan Peterson’s “Draw from the Hat” qucik-sculpt assignments; another from the Tower series, and two survivors of the “Some Assembly Required” series, wherein I made vases, sliced them up with a fettling knife, and slipped and scored and reassembled them in non-functional arrays.

Fettling knife–slipping and scoring–roulettes, batts, banding wheels, double-bellied, slab roller, extruder, pug mill–I love the language of Ceramics!